The longer I study politics and the twisted road we travel
in trying to maintain some semblance of order in what we presume the Founding
Fathers intended for this country the more confused I become. I cannot help but wonder where simple
Aristotelian logic is to be found in all this is? Do we have some ingrained need within us that
equates complexity with sophistication so we are somehow led to feel bigger and
more important than we really are?
Why is there not more simplicity in what we do so even the
least among us can comprehend and react intelligently to what is going on in
our name and, ostensibly, for the common good?
Instead, we blur that fundamental need with all sorts of ceremony, rules,
regulations and privilege that serve no purpose for the body politic and the
society in which we are consigned to live?
We have managed to make the people’s government and how it works the
stuff, not of the common man, but of all sorts of specialists who have a corner
on how we interpret the very tenets of how we are to behave and live? Long ago, it was our complicity that set the
stage for the greatest surge in the growth of what we now call the “legal
profession,” in all its forms and manifestations.
Who has benefitted most from this? Why is it the politicians of every stripe and
ilk we can imagine? That is followed by
the corruption of money, social strata, and a population that simply cannot
hold those who pretend to be superior to the basics by which we should all
live, work and prosper? We just cannot
seem to resist the temptation to put the noose around our own necks.
What twisted mind came up with the notion that the Supreme
Court should be appointed by the President?
Is that not a sterling example of a conflict of interest that is one of
the President’s most cherished perquisites of the office he holds? Understandably so.
If we are all to suffer the “wisdom” of the Supreme Court,
then I would ask why the esteemed justices are not the result of winning the
confidence of the American people by popular vote of the people, rather than by
what seems to be a kinship with buddies of the rich, powerful and privileged of
the land. It does not seem like it would
be terribly complicated to make that change so we all have a say in who gets
seated on the “bench,” for how long, and who can feign wisdom when it comes to
our common welfare and what is best for those of us who comprise the “people”
of this country. If they have the power
to make sweeping decisions that affect all of us, then why should we not have
the power to decide who makes those decisions?
I regard the Supreme Court as one of the greatest enigmas within
our system of government. They seem to have
an aura of arrogance and a sense of superiority that should not be tolerated,
much less encouraged and, even more ridiculous, revered.
I, for one, think it is time for all members of the Supreme
Court to be elected by popular vote of the people, with term limits, and the Chief
Justice elected at the beginning of each session, by a majority vote of the
entire court.
That should put their role in proper perspective and remind
them that it is the people of this country who put them there, keeps them there
and to whom they are accountable; not a self-styled aristocracy predicated on
wealth, privilege and ill-gotten power.
I, for one, think it is time we gave real meaning to what we
euphemistically call a “democracy,” relegate “republic” to the dust bin of
history and get on with the people’s business as it should be conducted in the
world of today, and, sadly, is what most people actually believe we already
have.
And that is the way I see it.
Cowboy Bob
The Sagebrush Philosopher
April 8, 2014
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